Help Discussion

These posts relate to the editing the KGS help pages. When you add a post, add it immediately after this section so that the posts are in reverse chronical order. Copy a previous post title to use as a template for your post title.

This post contains the design rationales for the Introduction to KGS sub-page of Main KGS Window.

When you enter the KGS help pages, Introduction to KGS is the first thing you see. In the past, there were only two introductory sentences. It now contains the following information in addition to the original two sentences.

chatting in a room

setting up a private chat (a PM)

putting your friends in you buddy list by right clicking on their name

three ways to get a game.

In the past, the introductory section was followed by a detailed description of the file menu. Things like trouble shooting information when images are uploaded were included. After that came the screen shot for the KGS Main Window screen shot. The current description of the file menu is much shorter than the old one.

These changes were motivated by considering the needs of the first time user. Many first time users need the information provided in the current introductory paragraph. The reason they need the exact information about how to chat that is there is explained in the two "first time user" scenarios in the further down in this text.

The information about "three ways to get a game" addresses four things. First, first-timers often ask how to get a game in the main room chat lines. Second, many newbies complain that it takes too long to get a game. Third, there are newbies that find automatch the most useful feature of KGS. In fact, there is a KGS newbie in my local go club who has never used any feature of KGS except automatch. The first two of these items are commonly answered in the main window chat rooms by 1) referring the newbie to the game offers and 2) telling them about the "custom game button". Invariably, this is a great help to the newbie.

The next thing a first time user needs to see is in the KGS Main Window help page is the screen shot of the KGS Main Window.

Unfortunately, it is now necessary to put the File Menu description between the introductory paragraph and the screen shot. This is necessary to prevent the screen shot from covering up the list of available translations on some monitors. Two things make the intrusion of the File Menu description less serious. First of all the File Menu is shorter now, and with less detail. Second, the introductory paragraph has a section title that is somewhat larger than the other section titles.

There are two major ways that a first time user finds KGS. One is through personal contact and the other is linking to it from another web page. These two scenarios are described in more detail below. These descriptions were used to design the content of the introductory paragraph on the Main KGS Window help page.

Here are three things that you might do when you invite a friend or an acquaintance to visit you on KGS.

Give them your KGS user name.

Tell them to get an account and to register it.

Tell them to make you their buddy.

You are likely to tell them to go to the web site and follow the instructions there to set up a registered account. The instructions they get are fairly clear. After they register their account, they will have a user name that yo can use to find them.

But how do they make you their buddy? You told them, but, they forgot. So they find the Help menu on the Main KGS Window and are taken to the Main KGS Window help page. With the new introductory paragraph, instructions for making you their buddy are the first thing they see. Previously these instructions were buried far down in the help page. They are still there, and there is a link to them in the introductory paragraph. They have more detail than is contained in the introductory paragraph.

Let's imagine another scenario. Suppose someone is surfing the web and finds the KGS web site. They click on "Help" and are taken to the "Welcome to KGS" help page. There, they find an invitation to chat. But, how to do it? The invitation contains a link to the Main KGS Window help page. The current paragraph tells them how to chat right away.

Two of the other changes made at the same time were as follows

1) In an edit several weeks ago, a table of contents was inserted. Maybe that was last month. This time the words "commands" were deleted from all section titles. That seemed to make everything flow better, and, it certainly made the table of contents easier to read.

2) The "Playing Games" section was moved below the image. I can't move the "File Menu" section below the image because the image would then cover up the "available translations" section in the Hot Links on some monitors.